Tag Archives: denver

I’m a basketball fan. Having grown up in Denver, I’m more specifically a Nuggets fan. I played basketball at the YMCA as a kid, and our Junior Nuggets team got to play during halftime at a few NBA games. We got to meet the players before the games and got autographs and photos. I still have an autographed ball from one of those trips to the Pepsi Center, shortly after it had opened. The team, at the time, was coached by Nuggets legend Dan Issel. His is the most notable signature on my ball. The top players on our team back then were Nick van Exel and the perpetually-injured Antonio McDyess (they also had a young, pre-Pistons-Finals-MVP and fellow Denver native Chauncey Billups, one of my favorite players of all time, but I didn’t manage to snag his autograph).

Point is, the Nuggets weren’t great. Hell, they weren’t even good. They finished that season 35-47 and missed the playoffs for the fifth straight year. They continued their ineptitude for another few years until finally, in the 2003-2004 season, they made the playoffs thanks in part to a rookie named Carmelo Anthony. In my opinion, however, something else changed that year that helped set everything in motion — they rebranded.

At GroundFloor Media, we love giving back to the community however we can. That’s part of the reason why we started the Get Grounded Foundation in 2015 to help fund new, innovative and entrepreneurial programs or projects within existing, qualified nonprofits that directly support the healthy development of at-risk youth in the Denver Metro area in the areas of child abuse and neglect, youth behavioral health or childhood hunger relief.

We started the Get Grounded Spotlight video series to highlight a few of the past recipients of our Get Grounded grant. The latest episode centers on Denver Children’s Advocacy Center. DCAC serves the city and county of Denver in helping children and families recover from traumatic experiences. Get Grounded provided funding to help support the organization’s yoga therapy program. Watch the video above to learn more.

Once you’re done, check out the first episode, which featured another past grant recipient, PCs For People. If you are interested in receiving a Get Grounded Grant, the submission deadline for Spring 2018 grants is Monday April 30 at 5 p.m. MDT.

Since 2015, GroundFloor Media’s Get Grounded Foundation has given one-year grants of up to $5,000 to non-profit organizations looking to kick-start innovative community programs. Since its founding, the Get Grounded Foundation has granted approximately $70,000 to organizations focused on the positive development of at-risk youth in the Denver Metro area.

Today, we’re launching a video series that shines a spotlight on past recipients to show their impact on the Denver community.

Our first video focuses on PCs For People, a non-profit that seeks to bridge the digital divide by providing technology to low-income families and other non-profit organizations such as CASA and Denver Children’s Home. Watch the video above for the full story below for more on PCs For People and the Get Grounded Foundation’s involvement with their mission to infuse technology into the lives of Denver’s citizens.

We were humbled to learn earlier this year that our Be A Smart Ash campaign for the Denver City Forester received the annual Kudos Marketing Award from the National Recreation and Parks Association (NRPA). And we were perhaps even more excited to be invited on NRPA’s monthly webinar to detail some learnings about the campaign.

So what exactly is Be A Smart Ash? We’ll let the campaign tagline do the talking:

1 in 6 trees in Denver are ash trees. And if we do nothing, it’s just a matter of time before they’ll ALL be devoured by the emerald ash borer, the most destructive forest pest in U.S. history. But who wants to be a Debbie Downer when you can Be A Smart Ash? Spend some time on our site and learn how you can help protect your ash and our urban canopy by identifying, treating and replacing Denver’s ash trees.

The Denver City Forester, a division of Denver Parks and Recreation, enlisted our help with a five-year integrated marketing campaign that has included naming, branding, messaging, content creation, internal and external communications, media relations, website development, SEO, digital advertising, video production and social media management.

The goal? Raising awareness about a tiny pest called the emerald ash borer (EAB), which has decimated ash tree populations in more than 25 states and parts of Canada.Read more after the jump…

I had the opportunity to attend one of the more than 350 sessions that were part of the 2017 Denver Startup Week. Now in its sixth year, Denver Startup Week is the largest free entrepreneurial event of its kind in North America, and is one of the best resources in the nation for those looking to start or grow a business, or in my case, to learn from the best in business.

One of the sessions I attended, “Chinese Rockets and Disco Dance Lessons: The Art of Reinvention – A Night with Startup Visionaries Charlie Ergen, Mark Cuban and Brad Feld,” was highly entertaining and included a candid discussion with successful entrepreneurs.

While admittedly I’m not an entrepreneur, I’m in awe of gutsy business leaders who just go for it and live their dream. Charlie Ergen is the co-founder of Dish Network; Brad Feld runs the Foundry Group, a Boulder venture capital fund; and Mark Cuban is the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks and star of “Shark Tank.”

That’s a cardinal rule for consumer brands when developing digital content. But does the same now go for consumers aiming to critique these brands online?

In an age in which critics have become brands unto themselves, that notion is certainly an interesting one. And one of my favorite Denver restaurants provides a captivating case study.

If you’re a brunch junkie, you’ve done yourself a disservice if you haven’t been to Onefold in Denver, a quaint spot that artfully weaves comfort foods of the Asian, French and Mexican persuasions. That is to say, there’s always a line out the door and it’s highly likely you’ll be dining amidst a sea of chambray and skinny jeans.

Without getting into the merits of each crisis communication instance, since we have already worn a path around the water cooler, in general there are some best practices to make an effective apology that will at least take a bit of the sting out of a negative situation.

Immediacy: When something goes wrong and your reputation is at stake, the sooner you apologize, the better. This can be difficult, without knowing all the facts and when dealing with legal issues. But, an immediate apology that expresses remorse, admits responsibility, makes amends and promises that it won’t happen again should still feel real without having completed a full investigation.

Use Social Media: Either through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube — apologize on a platform that your target audiences are following. Read more after the jump…

HBO’s John Oliver takes on the media’s attempts to sell his show’s content through sensational headlines and clickbait.

As media outlets look to grow their shrinking audiences and advertising budgets, they are turning to popular online platforms to share stories and drive engagement.

The New York Times for instance, is setting the bar for how it presents its stories online, by including video, graphics, podcasts and photos. It’s refreshing compared to the tired ink and paper version that fewer and fewer people find on their door steps each morning. But, as some media outlets are looking to truly engage and embrace online platforms, there are others that are simply driving their audiences to digital properties to drive clicks, which they will somehow count as audience growth and sell to advertisers.

This trend is called clickbait, content whose main purpose is to attract attention and encourage visitors to click on a link to a particular web page or to comment, with the goal of growing audiences and digital revenue. It has nothing to do with journalism, although it can be cloaked as such.

For me, watching the U.S. Women’s National Basketball Team destroy the competition was a highlight of the Rio Olympics, especially in comparison to their more highly touted male counterparts who occasionally struggled to squeak out wins. The women straight up dominated on their way to winning gold (for the sixth straight time), outscoring their opponents by an average of 37 points. Their superiority made me wonder: why does the WNBA settle for such terrible names and logos for their teams? These women are athletes and competitors. They deserve better than to play for the Sparks, Sky, Fever and Dream. The especially irksome names are all derived from NBA affiliates, with the women’s team being the lesser of the two. The Wizards (an awful name in its own right) have the Mystics, the Timberwolves have the Lynx, the Spurs have the Stars, and the Mavericks have the Wings. Let’s give these women the respect they deserve and come up with some team names that are cool, and logos that aren’t simply bastardizations of their NBA brothers.

Media complaints about public relations pros are well known: too many lame pitches, misleading pitches, ill-timed pitches and incessant follow-ups. But it’s a two-way street. PR folks can be just as frustrated with with the media. Digiday offers some pet peeves that agencies have with the media. I can attest that all of them are based in some reality. Here are some of the highlights submitted by PR firms to Digiday, along with some personal experiences: Read more after the jump…

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Sister agencies GroundFloor Media (GFM) and CenterTable navigate the blurred lines between marketing, public relations and advertising – online and off. The GFM team creates and manages messages from inception through an intermediary to the end consumer, while the CenterTable team creates messages that engage directly with the end consumer. Both agencies work with a wide range of clients – from food & beverage to health & wellness to technology & telecomm – who consistently offer us innovative and creative opportunities to reach new audiences. We developed this blog to share our experiences, advice and industry commentary with other communicators. We hope you enjoy it!